On this page we look at a brief history of
the UK Registration Plate.
Nothing to do with the Anglia, but I thought it would be
fun to look at.

I
know that this has nothing to do with the Ford
Anglia specifically, except for the fact that in
the UK,
every car has to have a unique registration plate
(commonly known as the number plate),
which, with a little decoding, also shows where a
vehicle was initially registered.(I will only cover the period of
time that the Ford Anglia was available to buy
brand new.)

but first a
very brief bit of History ...

The first series of number
plates were issued following the Motor Car Act of
1903 and ran until 1932, using the series A1
 YY9999. The letter or pair of letters
indicated the local authority in whose area the
vehicle was registered. (Please see the table on
the next page for which local
authorities issued which numbers). When a
licensing authority reached 9999, it was
allocated another two letter mark, but there was
no pattern to these subsequent allocations as
they were allocated on a first come first served
basis.

As the volume of
registrations increased, this system quickly
became inadequate, and so a new system was
introduced (though not universally) in 1932. This
consisted of three letters followed by three
digits (e.g. YAS 552). The three-letter scheme
preserved the area letter codes as the second pair of
letters in the set of three while the first
letter was a counter ascending
through the alphabet (A, B, C etc). In the
example Y is the counter letter, AS is the area office (Nainshire) and
552 is a random combination of numbers, starting
at 1 for that letter combination (e.g. YAS) and
going up to 999

In
1953 some local areas started issuing
reversed registrations putting the
numbers first (e.g. 552 YAS). When a few local
areas exhausted those combinations in the early
1960s, they even went back to using just the area
codes (including the single letter ones) with the
letters at the end (e.g. 9999YY).

The Period the Ford
Anglia was Available (1959 - 1968)

As previously described
above, your new 1959 Ford Anglia 105E could have
had any combination of numbers and letters
depending on what part of the country you lived
in.

My Ford Anglia
Saloons original number plate was:

Where the U was the counter letter,AW was the area office in
Shropshire and it was the 501st car registered with the
letter combination UAW

If you purchased your new
Ford Anglia Super, Estate or Thames Van in 1961,
then you too could have had any of the
combinations of letters and numbers described
above. Things couldnt last and eventually
this system became exhausted with the amount of
new cars being registered. In 1963 an attempt was
made to create a national scheme to alleviate the
problem. A revolutionary new system of suffix
letters was introduced, where each new year had a
suffix letter, (starting with A in 1963) added to
the three letter, three number combinations.
(e.g. YAS 552 could become YAS 552A) Some areas
adopted the scheme quite quickly, whereas others
did not adopt the year letter for the first two
years, sticking to their own schemes. In 1965
adding the year letter was made compulsory.

As well as yielding many
more available numbers, it was a handy way for
car buyers to know the age of the vehicle
immediately. At first the year letter changed on
January 1st every year, but car retailers started
to notice that car buyers would tend to wait
towards the end of the year for the new letter to
be issued, so that they could get a
"newer" car. This led to major peaks
and troughs in sales over the year. To help
flatten this out somewhat the industry lobbied to
get the month of registration changed from
January to August. This was done in 1967, a year
that had two letter changes: "E" came
in January, and "F" came in August.

Suffix
Letter

Date of
Issue

A

January 1963 to
December 1963

B

January 1964 to
December 1964

C

January 1965 to
December 1965

D

January 1966 to
December 1966

E

January 1967 to
July 1967

F

August 1967 to July
1968

If you had bought any of your favourite Ford
Anglia models from 1963 until its demise in 1967,
then you could have a number plate with a year
letter suffix (depending on the area of the
country your vehicle was registered.)

My Ford Anglia Vans
original number plate was:

Where the Jwas the
counter letter, BV was the area office in
Blackburn, it was the 344th car registered with the
letter combination JBV and has the suffix letter F, meaning it was registered
sometime between August 1967 and July 1968.

The UK Registration Plates
had white, grey or silver characters on a black
background.
This style of plate was phased out in 1972, and
is now only legal on vehicles first constructed
before 1st January 1973, which is good news for
Anglia owners. Although Anglia owners, if they
wish, can use the current white / yellow
reflective number plates with black letters on
their vehicle. (Similar to that shown below).

In the UK the Registration
Plate usually stays with the vehicle for life and
so the number is passed from owner to owner.
Number plates have to be fitted to both the front
and rear of the vehicle, with the rear one
needing to be illuminated.